Return of the Reds| West Bengal

After a long interregnum, the Left makes a splash with a big youth protest rally.

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Romita Datta

September 20, 2019

ISSUE DATE: September 30, 2019

UPDATED: September 20, 2019 13:04 IST

Come no further: Police use water cannons to disperse the Left rally. (Photo: Subir Halder)

Even as the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP continue their daily cat-and-mouse manoeuvres, another battlefront is opening up in the state. Cadre of the Left parties clashed with the police at Howrah, just a few kilometres away from the administrative headquarters, Nabanna, on September 13.

The police used water cannons and teargas to disperse a 40,000-strong crowd of jobless youth near Mullick Ghat in Howrah. The rally, taken out under the banner of 12 left-wing student organisations, had been on the road for two days. They were protesting the TMC government’s tall claims of having created 7.7 million jobs between 2012 and 2018. The march, with its sea of red sickle-and-hammer flags and "Inquilab zindabad" slogans, was a throwback to a time when the Left parties had a strong appeal among the young, educated classes.

The Students' Federation of India (SFI) and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), both CPI(M) affiliates, had lost an estimated 1.6 million members after the Trinamool came to power in 2011. But over the years, they have been able to regroup somewhat as the youth lost confidence in the TMC government’s ability to offer jobs or recruit people in a transparent manner.

That said, the last time the Left held a successful protest in Bengal was in 2017 over farmers' deaths. Even the CPI(M) mandarins were surprised at the turnout this time. DYFI state secre­tary Sayandeep Mitra says he was "overwhelmed by the huge response. We expected around 7,000, but it turned out to be a sea of Left supporters and sympathisers. DYFI state president Meenakshi Mukherjee, who was injured in the police lathi-charge, insists it was a peaceful demonstration. The police resorted to the worst kind of barbarism; 60 of our comrades had to be hospitalised and 22 were arrested," she says.

"We just wanted somebody from the administration, on behalf of chief minister Mamata Banerjee, to take our petition," says Mukherjee. SFI state secretary Srijan Bhattacharya says, "We want to ask Didi, what is the use of Didi ke bolo (the helpline for registering grievances) if she uses her police to silence the aggrieved."

The Left parties say they conducted a month-long survey across 22 districts of the state to understand the job crisis in the state. We have a list of over 1 million educated youth who are either unemployed or working in decidedly inferior jobs, says Mitra.

The student leaders say they only wanted to apprise Didi of the job crisis and the police action was unwarranted. But political insiders say it has come as a kind of blessing for the CPI(M) leadership, who had been taking flak for 'surrendering' to the friendly overtures from Mamata Banerjee. In the recent assembly session, worried by the rise of a dogged BJP, Mamata had pleaded with "committed Left sympa­thisers" (the 7 per cent voters who had stuck with the party in the general election while others shifted alle­giance to the BJP) not to desert the party and assured them full protection and cooperation.

It’s no secret that a section of the Left leadership had taken a shine to Mamata after this. The police acti­on, then, has at the very least rid the Left of the reputation of being the TMC’s B-team. The barbaric police action against our comrades has once again proved that we are the real opposition in the state, says CPI(M) state comm­ittee member Robin Deb. Compare this with the way the police dealt with the BJP Yuva Morcha strike on Sept­ember 12. Again, this proves that the TMC and BJP are hand-in-glove.